Boko Haram: Niger suspends ‘congregational assembly’ in schools

The Niger State Commissioner for Education, Danladi Abdulhamid, on Thursday directed all public schools in the state to suspend every form of open congregational activities.

The order came less than 24 hours after a female suicide bomber detonated a bomb at the Federal College of Education, Kontagora.

The bomber and one student died in the incident.

The commissioner gave the order at Maryam Babangida Girls’ Science Secondary School, Bosso, during an unscheduled visit to the school.

The directive came following the discovery of a man in school uniform trying to invade the hostel in the early hours of Thursday.

The Principal of the school, Hajiya Fatima Madugu, who confirmed the incident, said the suspected bomber tried to gain entrance to the school through a foot path, having hidden himself in the bush waiting for the assembly to commence.

But luck ran against him when a staff of the school, Mrs. Bezat Doma, who came to college through the bush path, saw him, already dressed in the school uniform.

Narrating her experience Doma said she followed the bush path (short cut) to enable her get to school early and meet up with her 8:00am lesson, only to be accosted by the unknown man who asked her to return home, if she values her life.

“I was really scared, when I saw the man almost dressed in the school uniform and was about to put on the Hijab (veil) when I sighted him. It was because of the smell of Indian hemp that made me looked at his direction.

“The man told me to go home, there is no school today. Go if you love your life and I just took off my shoes and ran back. But, instead of going home, I went to inform our principal on the assembly ground.”

This led to panic in the school as both staff and students scampered to safety. But the arrival of the military and the police quickly brought the situation under control.

Addressing staff of the school on Thursday, the commissioner said the state governor has directed that all congregational activities, such as morning and closing assembly or prayers should be suspended until further notice.

“Government has resolved to suspend all congregational activities in our schools for the time being. These enemies of the society are fond of attacking schools during such activities and we feel we should suspend it for now to ensure safety of our children and teachers,” he stated.

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All Schools in the North should suspend “All School Assembly” and use other means to ensure roll-call and information dissemination to the students….until further notice, definitely until the security situation improves.

Also all governors in the North should mount public campaign – every tongue spoken in their state – to everyone not to allow their children to be un-attended, street hawkers and young job seekers of any kind should be wary of strangers, especially those who can dole out money quickly for errands of delivering a package or bag to wherever or whoever….we do not want them counted as “suicide bomber” statistics

All unattended bags or luggages in the public places should be notified to a hotline that should be set up by the government.

All assembly points, public transit points, Bus stops, motor parks, airports in the North should be patrolled by those who on a 24-hr basis would lookout for suspicious packages and people. Every traveller or passenger should alert security patrols of un-attended luggages.